RACISM/RALLY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Trump on Friday [7-19-19] demonstrated the limited influence of allies or advisers who try to steer him away from pre-election racial and cultural fights. He walked back his disavowal of a racially loaded chant at a campaign rally less than 24 hours after making it. Acquiescing to behind-the-scenes pressure from nervous Republican lawmakers and from his elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, the president distanced himself on Thursday [7-18-19] from the chant of ‘Send her back!’ that the crowd at his rally on Wednesday in Greenville, N.C., directed at Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who was born in Somalia. Mr. Trump said he was ‘not happy’ with the chant’s language and claimed, falsely, that he had tried to cut it off.
–Annie Karni, “In Another About-Face, Trump Refuses to Condemn ‘Send Her Back’ Chant,” The New York Times online, July 19, 2019